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Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

Today Google and Verizon announced a plant to abandon the principle of Net Neutrality. Instead of facilitating all net traffic without bias, they now intend to speed up the flow of internet traffic for clients who pay a premium to them, and to slow it down for everything else.

The Huffington Post says this is "the end of the internet as we know it."

Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

Thanks, B-mo.

Here's more from the same HuffPost link in the OP:

What Google and Verizon are proposing is fake Net Neutrality. You can read their framework for yourself here or go here to see Google twisting itself in knots about this suddenly "thorny issue." But here are the basics of what the two companies are proposing:

1. Under their proposal, there would be no Net Neutrality on wireless networks -- meaning anything goes, from blocking websites and applications to pay-for-priority treatment.

2. Their proposed standard for "non-discrimination" on wired networks is so weak that actions like Comcast's widely denounced blocking of BitTorrent would be allowed.

3. The deal would let ISPs like Verizon -- instead of Internet users like you -- decide which applications deserve the best quality of service. That's not the way the Internet has ever worked, and it threatens to close the door on tomorrow's innovative applications. (If RealPlayer had been favored a few years ago, would we ever have gotten YouTube?)

4. The deal would allow ISPs to effectively split the Internet into "two pipes" -- one of which would be reserved for "managed services," a pay-for-pay platform for content and applications. This is the proverbial toll road on the information superhighway, a fast lane reserved for the select few, while the rest of us are stuck on the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

5. The pact proposes to turn the Federal Communications Commission a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing consumer complaints but unable to make rules of its own. Instead, it would leave it up to unaccountable (and almost surely industry-controlled) third parties to decide what the rules should be.

And I won't be here to see the dayIt all dries up and blows awayI'd hang around just to seeBut they never had much use for meIn Levelland. (James McMurtry)

Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

Never, ever, forget that Verizon, as owner of some of the infrastructure (as well as any other companies that do as well), has absolutely no interest in doing anything that reduces cost for any end consumers at ANY time. Coupling that with Google as a portal / content provider who is acting in concert with the telecom companies, yes, this could spell the beginning of the end of the low cost (no internet is ever free -- somebody pays for every site and every access at some point) current internet model, and that could happen within a few years, but likely would actually lead to government intervention beyond what it currently is and would possibly decimate the telecoms yet again as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 did, despite the fact that few who had no connection to the telecom industry would understand what it did to both the telecom industry and the nation's economy as a whole.

Bandwidth allocation is key to both end consumer satisfaction and overall utility of the internet. For those unwilling or unable to pay very much for bandwidth, or for those of us who live where the only broadband option is satellite service (which really is not sufficient these days unless the end consumer is willing to pay FAR more than they would otherwise due to the finite processing capacity of the aging satellite infrastructure), the internet will likely no longer be anything but a means to have glorified text messaging through e-mail and text based website access due to the ever increasing size of files and bandwidth required to handle things the majority of internet users currently take for granted.

The term "Net Neutrality" is a bizarre concept, and I don't think the term comes close to describing what is being proposed.

Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

few who had no connection to the telecom industry would understand what it did to both the telecom industry and the nation's economy as a whole.

Like, me, for instance. I know that Indianapolis' Western Electric plant closed after the breakup of AT&T -- but that was actually well before 1996. So I don't have any idea that the Telecommunications Act did. All I know is that it marked the point after which US telecommunications infrastructure started to be inferior to that of other developed countries.[/quote]

The term "Net Neutrality" is a bizarre concept, and I don't think the term comes close to describing what is being proposed.

Why bizarre? I've heard it likened to a library card that entitles me to check out any book in the library or a broadcast license that allows a radio station to broadcast whatever it wishes. Al Franken () has called Net Neutrality the First Amendment Issue of the 21st Century.

And I won't be here to see the dayIt all dries up and blows awayI'd hang around just to seeBut they never had much use for meIn Levelland. (James McMurtry)

Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

Like, me, for instance. I know that Indianapolis' Western Electric plant closed after the breakup of AT&T -- but that was actually well before 1996. So I don't have any idea that the Telecommunications Act did. All I know is that it marked the point after which US telecommunications infrastructure started to be inferior to that of other developed countries.

Why bizarre? I've heard it likened to a library card that entitles me to check out any book in the library or a broadcast license that allows a radio station to broadcast whatever it wishes. Al Franken () has called Net Neutrality the First Amendment Issue of the 21st Century.[/QUOTE]

My family has owned a company that has provided telecommunications (and occasionally power) construction in Indiana since the 1950's. The balkanization of the Bell system, while providing an incentive to reduce costs to cover the additional overhead of duplicate white collar workers as well as huge increases in advertising expense that customers eventually paid for with reduced service quality, in my opinion started telecom down the wrong path. Then, when those balkanized Baby Bells were forced to lease their lines at and below cost to competitors who did not bear the cost of the infrastructure as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, well paying jobs were lost throughout the industry for many years, both for union workers for the telecom companies themselves as well as in the ranks of contractor labor forces. Ultimately, coupled with horrific costs of healthcare (by the way, I, shockingly, as a conservative small business owner, am completely in favor of any effort that the Obama administration actually completes to change the system that has nearly bankrupted our family due to our loyalty to long term employees who happen to have health problems themselves or have family members who do, and has taken away our ability to be competitive in our shrunken marketplace) our family business is basically shut down because of the forces set into motion by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The incentive for expanding and upgrading facilities dwindled, and so did the cash flow through the sector of the economy that had been vibrant (with the exception of the recession of the early 1980's). Those telecom workers became displaced into lower paying jobs with reduced discretionary spending capabilities, as well as many being forced to begin liquidating nest eggs to keep up with a standard of living that they had been accustomed to, including securities in the stock and bond markets.

I am afraid that the government will become involved in the whole Net Neutrality thing, too, with the unintended consequences being another degradation of ultimate service to the end consumers due to the desire of the government to "protect" the masses from monopolistic practices of infratstructure providers working in concert with portal / content providers, and because of government intervention there possibly being a reduction of profits to those providers, who, in turn, will reduce employment and benefits to counteract government actions that are intended to provide open access for all.

Outside of all of that, there will be victors who become wealthy due to taking advantage of access paid for by advertising, mainly the advertisers, and those who provide such unique services that they pass by without being regulated for a while. I would love to figure out how to become one of those.

Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

Those who have money get better things than those who don't. Pretty much the same principle that everything is based on these days.

Explain, please? because i think there is a difference.

As I understand it, the double-tiered internet of the near future will be determined by the providers buying better routing.

I can have more money that some porn-watching slob, but if the porn channel pays for better routing then it will move fast while Pacers Digest or the theology discussion group I like to read load at 300 baud per second.

What this decision means, it seems, is that I won't be allowed to choose better internet service except by choosing the content that Google and Verizon have awarded the routing priority.

And I won't be here to see the dayIt all dries up and blows awayI'd hang around just to seeBut they never had much use for meIn Levelland. (James McMurtry)